General gaming

General gaming

XCOM Enemy Unknown Brings Back the '90s

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 05:00 AM PST

We rarely see them today, but grey aliens infected pop culture in the '90s; you probably remember them -- the ones with the ovoid heads and giant eyes. They were everywhere: on the cover of bestselling books (Communion); blockbuster movies (Fire in the Sky); and hit TV shows from South Park to The X-Files. In the midst of this alien-mania Microprose released X-Com: UFO Defense, a game that seemed to tap into a cultural vein of paranoia and the obsession for secret government agencies, conspiracies, black helicopters, and alien invasion.

XCOM Enemy Unknown, from current Civilization makers Firaxis, embraces its '90s roots. After sitting through a guided demo, we found a modern game that feels like a 20 year-old PC classic -- not an upcoming downloadable title meant to be played with a controller. The art, music, and old-school mechanics -- like permanent death for your squad members -- all work together to create an atmosphere of tension that's missing from modern games. You can and will fail at XCOM.

Mass Effect 3 Video Review

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 12:36 AM PST

You didn't think we were done after our Mass Effect 2 week-of-fun, did you? Oh, silly mortal, no. This week, we're just making the shift to the third (proper) game in the series now that it's out and you can buy it and we're no longer special for having early access. So look for ongoing coverage of the game all this week.

Or just watch the video review above, and let us know what you think below! We're glad to have you however you want us.

Mass Effect 3 Review: An Extraordinary Conclusion to a Great Trilogy

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 12:00 AM PST

Days after finishing Mass Effect 3, I find myself still haunted by a decision I made midway through my 30-hour campaign to rally the galaxy against the invasion of giant chthonic god-machines known as "the Reapers." It's the sort of decision that had me truly wracking my brain and deliberating over how the options the game offered me were no longer simply "good Boy Scout" versus "bad boy Bauer" (from 24, a show that the developers at BioWare have frequently mentioned in reference to the general attitude of a player who follows the "Renegade" path) as in previous Mass Effect installments. Both decisions contributed to the greater good; but they also involved the possibility of triggering a war between two species and betraying a long-trusted friend who's been with Commander Shepard -- and by extension, me -- for the past two games over the course of five years.

This kind of moment -- one where I'm caught between bleak and bleaker -- comes up frequently in Mass Effect 3. What's remarkable is that this was a choice affected by decisions I made as far back as the original Mass Effect in 2007. I knew my choice would have tangible consequences on the rest of my ME3 play-through; in many cases, the consequences didn't become obvious until hours later. That's a video game storytelling device first seen in The Witcher, and I'm glad BioWare has picked up on it, though it's not as prevalent in ME3.

It's not just that one moment, either. A man I told off in the first game shows up in ME3, forcing me to juggle his fate versus that of the known galaxy. An in-the-moment impulse that I had indulged in for Mass Effect 2 rears its head in a boss battle for Mass Effect 3. My choice in a ME2 loyalty mission -- which I justified as the right decision at the time -- subsequently prevents me from fulfilling a promise I had made to another ME1 character. A cynic could reduce most of these decisions and interactions into a giant Mad Lib where the game either inserts a known-and-living character from previous games or a generic nobody to fulfill a needed story role, but for someone like me who's swept up with the fiction and has personal attachment to my save file, I can excuse the incredible array of coincidences that lead to me re-encountering every person I know in the galaxy for this go-around. For me, seeing this labyrinthine interplay between decisions and their consequences stands out most during my ME3 playthrough.

Steam Console to Shake Up Next-Gen

Posted: 05 Mar 2012 06:02 PM PST

Steam Box

Valve may unveil its own gaming 'console' sometime this year, according to a report by The Verge. The Valve console would be an open hardware standard that computer manufacturers could build to. It could potentially play standard PC titles and make use of competitors' distribution services, like Origin. Despite any possible 'Steam Box' (as many are referring to the device) branding, the device would essentially be a small, reasonably powered PC connected to a television that also hosts a couch-friendly controller-based interface. If true, the Steam Box would be both a surprise entry into the next-gen console race and the first viable console from a new company since Microsoft's Xbox debuted in 2001.

1UP's Ryan Winterhalter and Chris Pereira sat down today to discuss the prospects of the system and what kind of impact it could have.

OP-ED: The Old Republic Group Finder Should Reel Me Back In

Posted: 05 Mar 2012 02:27 PM PST

Star Wars The Old Republic

As tends to be the case whenever I begin playing any MMORPG, I quickly lost much of my desire to continue playing Star Wars: The Old Republic on a regular basis. That's not reflective on the game's quality, as I think it's quite good (if a bit too World of Warcraft-like for its own good), I just don't find it as easy to play in one particular way as I'd like. Luckily BioWare plans to address the matter in a future update by introducing a group finder tool.

Such functionality had been hinted at in the past, although the news wasn't made official until today during the the first-ever Guild Summit. The day-long event features discussions on a variety of topics, and among the subjects tackled was confirmation of a group finder, something which unfortunately won't be among the features delivered in the 1.2 update.

Contrast: A Portal-Inspired Puzzle Game About Shadows

Posted: 05 Mar 2012 10:21 AM PST

Ask Guillaume Provost where the idea for his latest game came from, and he'll tell you it started in the kind of place you might expect from an indie developer: a coffee shop. Unlike many of those showing their titles at this week's Game Developers Conference, he was in Lyon, France when it happened -- he worked there as a freelancer following a job with Arkane Studios -- but the story sounds universal: he felt there was a place in the indie market for more games focused on a single creative gameplay idea.

"[Following] Portal...there seemed to be a niche for games that could revolve around a cool mechanic, and then really, really execute well on it," he says. "I was interested in making a game of a certain level of refinement...but I wanted it to build on something that was new in terms of how to traverse space."
Posted by Shri Krishna

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